Welcome to PYMNTS.com’s 2013 CEO Series: a quick and concise glimpse into the minds of the leaders of the payments industry and how they view innovation, change and growth. We’ll ask each top exec the same six questions about the payments industry to gauge who they view as innovation experts and why they feel their company stands out. What advice do these leaders have to offer to those looking to survive in a complex and dynamic industry? On PYMNTS.com, you can find out.
In this installment, we speak to Greg Wooten, CEO at SecureBuy, to learn his approach to innovation in an industry rife with change and challenges. What does Wooten believe young innovators need to keep in mind when breaking into the payments space? Find out below.
PYMNTS.com: How would you define your company’s approach to innovation?
Greg Wooten: When our company is engineering an innovative solution, it’s to solve a complex problem that can be addressed with business process automation and technology. We go through an extensive process of soliciting input from everyone and anyone in the payment industry that has a touch point to the problem. We use a higher level of thinking to solve complex problems than it took to create them through collaborative stockholder input, and then we engineer the solution.
What is the most innovative thing that you have introduced into the market – and what value did it deliver to the stakeholder group that was its target?
SecureBuy 2.0 was just released and is certified by Visa, MasterCard and American Express – and we are currently working with Discover. It took us 11 years and millions of dollars in research and development to engineer. It’s certainly the most effective mobile and eCommerce risk-based fraud prevention solution ever created for merchants of any size. SecureBuy 2.0 is a cloud-based, real-time, risk-based authentication solution that replaces the typical 4.9 rules-based fraud screening applications and manual review processes utilized by enterprise merchants today. SecureBuy outperforms anything in existence by automating 100 percent of the entire payment-fraud prevention process including friendly fraud /cyber-shoplifting. The technology behind this is proprietary and patented by us. We plan on releasing a version of SecureBuy 2.0 for call centers in the Q3 that will completely move the card data from the call centers and provide unparalleled payment fraud prevention at the same time.
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Where do you look for innovative ideas and why?
We look to the payment industry itself, as it’s very vocal about current and future problems and issues. Our company belongs to most all of the major industry associations and we simply listen. If we think we see an opportunity to solve an industry challenge with business process automation and technology, then we start the stakeholder input solicitation process.
What do you think that most people underestimate about innovating in payments?
I think it would be very easy for an inexperienced technology company to underestimate the regulatory and political environment in the payment industry. There are numerous challenges within the payment industry when creating technology that have nothing to do with the technology itself.
What person or company do you think “gets” innovation and why – and, conversely, who or what has missed it and why?
I think Visa “gets” innovation, delivering solutions like V.ME that provide real value and stabilize commerce for consumers, merchants, and the payment industry as a whole. Companies that have “missed it” are too numerous to name. There are too many companies that don’t innovate at all and simply promote and market outdated technology that perpetuates ineffective processes that have become part of the problem rather than the solution.
What advice would you give a young innovator in this space and why would you tell her to heed it?
I would recommend to any young innovator to partner with a company that is well established and experienced in their area of interest. In the process of delivering solutions to the payment industry, many resources are required outside of the standard capital requirements. When addressing technology specifically for the payment industry: there are many areas that require very specialized legal and technical skillsets that are hard to find and very expensive. A young innovator should be most concerned about delivering their innovation to market in a compliant and timely manner. If their innovation is not delivered to market when it is needed most: it may not deliver any value at all!
Greg Wooten
Chief Executive Officer
SecureBuy CEO Greg Wooten is an eCommerce industry pioneer and a recognized authority on eCommerce fraud and Cybershoplifting. Mr. Wooten, who joined SecureBuy in 2012 and simultaneously helms SecureBuy and payment processing leader USDT Corporation, has spent over three decades as an executive at Fortune 500 corporations and private firms in the emerging technologies and financial services industries. A frequent speaker on the topics of business automation, payment processing, eCommerce and payment fraud prevention for such companies and organizations as AT&T, CNP Expo, Magento Inc., Nielson Media, US Financial Services Group, USDT Corporation and the Direct Marketing Association, Mr. Wooten remains dedicated to the fight against eCommerce fraud in all its forms. Additionally Mr. Wooten is a member of the Electronic Transactions Association 2013 – Industry Relations Committee.
